Chapter 7, page 154
rework their ideas. Instead, they think of ideas in whatever order they come to mind, and they generally
write these ideas down on paper as they think of them without any thought about how the ideas will fit into
an overall structure. These students don’t plan their writing because they write what they are thinking in the
exact order that they are thinking it.
Younger students tend to be knowledge tellers when writing. During the elementary school years,
some begin to shift to a knowledge transforming model of writing. Teachers of elementary school children
should help students move from the knowledge telling strategy to the knowledge transforming strategy.
Revision. After a draft is written, the next step in the writing process is revision. Revision can range
from rewriting a whole draft with a new organization pattern to making minor changes in spelling. Good
writers spend more time revising than poor writers do (Beach & Friedrich, 2006; Hayes & Flower, 1986;
Pianco, 1979). But it is not just the amount of revising that differentiates effective from ineffective writers.
The type of revision varies as well.
Effective writers’ revisions are more global (Hayes & Flower, 1986). That is, effective writers are
more likely to make major changes affecting the overall structure of the paper. Students who are effective
writers not only plan more extensively; they also make more substantial changes after they have begun
writing. As they write, they may change their overall plan, which requires them to go back and rewrite
earlier sections. Effective writers are thus more likely to completely rewrite a major section, and they are
more likely to revise the overall organization of the paper. In contrast, to the extent that ineffective writers
do revise, their revisions are minor changes to words or phrases (Hayes & Flower, 1986; Kellogg, 1994).
They may correct a spelling error or add a comma, but they are unlikely to rewrite a whole paragraph to
make it more understandable or more coherent.
Problem 7.8. A researcher collected think aloud protocols from six eighth graders as they were
revising a paper in which they had written a movie review of a movie of their choice. Which of
these statements are likely to be made by effective writers but not by ineffective writers?A. “I think I should break this long sentence into two sentences.”
B. “Oh. This should be too with two O’s rather than with one O.”
C. “I don’t think people will understand this part where I explained the basic plot. I’d better
do this part again.”
D. “I don’t think this second reason for hating the movie makes very much sense. Maybe I
should take it out and talk instead about how the plot doesn’t make sense, and give two
or three examples.”
E. “If I say, ‘Everyone in the theater was laughing,’ people might not know whether I mean
because the movie was funny, or because it was dumb.”Response: Statements A, B, and E are all primarily about a single word or sentence in the
student’s essay. Even E—which shows admirable awareness that readers might find a
sentence ambiguous—is focused on a single sentence in the essay. Therefore, these statements
are all local revisions, and they could be made by ineffective as well as effective writers.
Statements C and D reflect an intent to make more global revisions. In statement C, the student
demonstrates a willingness to rewrite a whole section because readers might find it hard to
understand. Statement D shows the student considering taking out one argument for disliking
the movie and replacing with an entirely new argument, which would require substantial new
writing. Thus, Statements C and D exhibit an interest in more global revisions that are most
likely to be associated with students who write effectively.